英文读后感之鲁宾孙漂流记读后感

 
It seemed to be such a coincidence that the night after I finished reading The Life And Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, I was to dine in a restaurant distinctly related to the book itself. This restaurant was no other than the famous American-styled “Friday’s.” The reason for mentioning this restaurant is quite straightforward to all the gentlemen, ladies and children who have read the novel and enjoyed it, which is the fact that this restaurant was, most likely, named after the American Native in Robinson Crusoe, called Friday. This restaurant offers very exceptional service, for instance when the waitresses are asked to order dishes they kneel rather than stand, which, unlike the other restaurants I have been to, makes it easier for the customers to hear them speak. Moreover, Friday’s friendly services to the customers help them to make better choices when ordering dishes. I remembered when I went to Friday’s last time; the waitress kindly described the items on the menu with precise details. It turned out that the combo I initially wanted was designed to be shared among a large group, not to be eaten by one person. I think this restaurant shows many commendable features similar to that of Friday.
    Friday brought emotional warmth to the people around him with his appealing personality. I think it was this personality that affected Crusoe and made him say that he loved Friday when Crusoe didn’t express love for his parents, brothers, sisters, or even his wife. “When he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble, thankful disposition, making many antic gestures to show it…to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived.” This was what Friday did after Crusoe had rescued him from the two savages chasing him. It was easy for me to see why Crusoe had loved Friday. After sometime, Crusoe and Friday were to rescue Friday’s father. When Friday reunited with his father, the scene was easy to move anyone: “It would have moved anyone to tears to have seen how Friday kissed him, embraced him, hugged him, cried, laughed, halloed, jumped about, danced, sung; and then sung and jumped about again, like a distracted creature. It was a good while before I could make him speak to me.” This is my favourite chapter in the whole book. It is hard to see why Friday is an ex-savage when he can have personalities more praiseworthy than many civilized people, viz. Crusoe himself. “When he (Friday) went to him (Friday’s father), he would sit down by him, open his breast, and hold his father’s head close to his bosom, half an hour together, to nourish it; then he took his arms and ankles, which were numbed and stiff with the binding, and rubbed them with his hands.” Furthermore, Friday’s expression of loyalty in asking Crusoe to kill him rather than leave him is more heartfelt than anything Crusoe ever says or does.

    Crusoe, on the absolute contrary, seems incapable of deep feelings, as shown by his account of leaving his family—he never shows any emotions. After a moving lecture from Robinson’s father about his future, he still decided to follow his own wandering ambition. Careless was he about the wishes of his parents to keep him alive and prosperous, as he was the only child left in the family. When he came back from the island which he had lived on for twenty eight years, he found that it had been too late to tell his parents that he was still alive, but yet again he did not feel sorry for them; he also did not feel sorry for the two people who had to live in misery for nearly thirty years under the allusion all of their sons were dead. He had the same feelings for his wife: when he was married, he said it was “not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction”, implying that it was also neither to his advantage nor his satisfaction. Moreover, after his wife died, Robinson did not think of looking after the three children they had, but went back to the island, which he had lived on for twenty-eight years. It was on this trip which Robinson Crusoe revisited “His Island” as he called it. I feel that Robinson’s indifference to his family is almost emotionally cruel.

    Befoe had clearly shown the contrast between Crusoe’s and Friday’s personalities, as when Friday, in his joyful reunion with his father, displayed far more emotion toward his family members than Crusoe, whereas Crusoe never mentions missing his family or dreams about the happiness of seeing them again. I think Defore is very successful in introducing Friday as part of the novel, it makes the whole novel seem much more complete and gripping to the reader, as well as proving that Defoe’s ideology of racism is civilized unlike many other Europeans at that time; natives and savages are not worse than others but can perhaps even be more modern and civilized. Those are the reasons of why I like The Life And Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe and Friday.

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the Little Prince – A Tale of Love and Life                                   

Title: the Little Prince

Author: Antoine de St-Exupery

Main Characters: the little prince, the pilot, the rose, the fox, the snake, etc.

Despite I’ve not in my childhood yet, I still prefer reading fairy-tale stories. the tales, which accompany with me in my old days, often make me think of some precious experience and sensation which only belong to children. This summer I’ve review this kind of tale, which was published in 1940. It’s the world-famous fairy-tale by the French author, Antoine de St-Exupery, The Little Prince.

As many other fairy-tales, the outline of The Little Prince is not very complex. “I”, the narrator of the story, is a pilot whose plane has something wrong and lands in the Sahara. In this occasion, the pilot makes the acquaintance of the little prince, a little boy from another planet, the Asteroid B612. The little prince has escaped from his tiny planet, because he has some quarrel with a rose, which grows on his planet. In that case he left his own planet and took an exploration at some neighbor asteroids.

On his all-alone journey, the little prince meets different kinds of people, which includes a king, a conceited man, a tippler, a businessman, a lamplighter and a geographer. From these people he gets a conclusion that the grown-ups are very odd. Following the instruction of the geographer, he descends in the Sahara, on the earth.

Traveling on the earth, the little prince, who sees a garden of five-thousand roses, is overcome with astonishment and sadness, as he considers his rose is unique in the universe before. At that time a fox appears. The fox, who tell the little prince about the meaning of the word “tame”, becomes his new friend. At the time to say farewell, the fox makes him know that his rose is unique because she is his rose and tamed by him. From that the little prince begins to treasure friendship and be responsible to his rose.

At the anniversary day of his descent of the earth, rejecting the pilot’s advice, he goes back to his own planet by bite of a snake. “It’s too far. I can not carry this body with me. It’s too heavy.” he said. He tells his friend, the pilot, he must be responsible for his rose, so he has to go back. At the end the author doesn’t tell us the ending directly. Maybe it’s more significant for us to imagine, and for more, think over.

One of the important characters is the rose. Growing on the planet, she is very beautiful, but her coquetry and vanity suffer the little prince a lot. In spite of they love each other, he soon becomes unhappy. On the time of his departure, he just knows she certainly loves him. The character of the little prince actually represents the children, and their native thoughts and deeds. On the contrary, the inhabitants on the other planets, such as the king, the businessman and the conceited man, they also reflect the defects in the grown-up’s world. The real theme of this fairy-tale with a little sadness, I guess, is the consequence of pure love and friendship in our lives, but not others “matters of consequence” of the grown-ups.

Unbelievable, this little book moved me a lot. I seldom think about the true meaning of love and life before. Well, now I can say, with my short sixteen-year’s life experience, it’s like the stars in the sky that lit my heart. The little prince is not only an ordinary fairy-tale for children, but also for grown-ups, and our teenagers. Nevertheless, when I read this book, I feel a little sad – about ourselves, whom are losing more and more innocence

Published in 1847, WUtheRING HEIGHTS was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when WUTHERING HEIGHTS received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the GREat novels of English literature.
Even so, WUtheRING HEIGHTS continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and GREat loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.

the novel is told in the form of an extended FLASHback. After a visit to his strange landlord, a newcomer to the area desires to know the history of the family--which he receives from Nelly Deans, a servant who introduces us to the Earnshaw family who once resided in the house known as Wuthering Heights. It was once a cheerful place, but Old Earnshaw adopted a "Gipsy" child who he named Heathcliff. And Catherine, daughter of the house, found in him the perfect companion: wild, rude, and as proud and cruel as she. But although Catherine loves him, even recognizes him as her soulmate, she cannot lower herself to marry so far below her social station. She instead marries another, and in so doing sets in motion an obsession that will destroy them all.

WUtheRING HEIGHTS is a bit difficult to "get into;" the opening chapters are so dark in their portrait of the end result of this obsessive love that they are somewhat off-putting. But they feed into the flow of the work in a remarkable way, setting the stage for one of the most remarkable structures in all of literature, a story that circles upon itself in a series of repetitions as it plays out across two generations. Catherine and Heathcliff are equally remarkable, both vicious and cruel, and yet never able to shed their impossible love no matter how brutally one may wound the other.

As the novel coils further into alcoholism, seduction, and one of the most elaborately imagined plans of revenge it gathers into a ghostly tone: Heathcliff, driven to madness by a woman who is not there but who seems reflected in every part of his world--dragging her corpse from the grave, hearing her calling to him from the moors, escalating his brutality not for the sake of brutality but so that her memory will never fade, so that she may never leave his mind until death itself. Yes, this is madness, insanity, and there is no peace this side of the grave or even beyond.

It is a stunning novel, frightening, inexorable, unsettling, filled with unbridled passion that makes one cringe. Even if you do not like it, you should read it at least once--and those who do like it will return to it again and again